Broadcasters eye BCCI meeting outcome on billion-dollar media rights for Indian cricket team’s bilaterals

BCCI, the world’s richest cricket board, will hold an Apex Council Meeting today and may decide on the distribution of the media rights for India’s bilaterals for possibly the next four years. Disney Star held the rights till March, and thus India does not have a broadcaster for their bilateral games played here.

“The tender will be coming out soon. We’re planning to close the media rights process by August end,” BCCI secretary Jay Shah had said earlier this week.

Officials from a top media company and a potential bidder said the tender is not out yet.

Industry experts had told ET that the media rights of BCCI could generate more than Rs 10,000 crore, or $1.2 billion at the current exchange rate, while Disney Star, Sony-Zee, Viacom 18, and smaller media players are expected to invest more than $11 billion on marquee cricket properties during the 2023–2027 cycle, officials and analysts said.

In 2018, Star Sports India had outbid Reliance and Sony to win the BCCI media rights, for both television and digital platforms, for Rs 6138.1 crore. The rights were for the period of 2018 to 2023.Disney Star, that has an array of sports channels both in SD and HD format and offers commentary in regional languages, holds the rights to broadcast and stream matches on TV and on its digital platform for all ICC events. It also has the rights for the Asia Cup till this year.However, for the first time this year the BCCI had split the TV and digital rights of IPL from 2023-2027 to eventually garner a whopping Rs 48,390 crore in total from Disney Star and Mukesh Ambani’s flagship OTT platform JioCinema.

Disney Star bagged the TV rights for Rs 23,575 crore and Reliance-backed Viacom18 got digital rights for Rs 23,758 crore.

Industry experts are of the view that media companies may have a cautious approach while bidding for BCCI media rights, considering that they have already committed $9 billion towards IPL and ICC rights.

While sources had said earlier that BCCI will repeat this money-spinning split move, a key hurdle for the board however was to decide on they will package the rights for India’s future bilaterals.

ET had reported earlier that BCCI will unbundle television broadcasting and digital rights for India’s future bilateral series. Some industry experts had said the property will be valued in excess of Rs 15,000 crore, or nearly $2 billion, for the next four- or five-year bloc.

However, a source told ET Online that the mix of the formats (Tests, ODIs & T20Is) in the future fixture will determine the valuation. BCCI is also said to be still working on if they will opt for e-auction or other modes. BCCI may also separate the rights of men’s and women’s rights following the launch of Women’s Premier League that saw some commercial value.

Jay Shah had earlier confirmed that the sale of media rights will begin in July, and the tender will be floated sometime this month.

BCCI was reportedly also waiting for the conclusion of the ZEE-Sony merger before opening the bids for its media rights, but a Sebi order has now thrown a spanner in the wheels of the merger that will create a $10 billion media giant.